The NSC Boxset: Heart of Stone (255 page)

His suffering wrapped around me and squeezed deep, triggering paralysis in my lungs and trapping the little oxygen I had left in there, “Talk to me, baby.”

He sighed but remained quiet as his eyes absorbed me and fed his turmoil. His forehead came to rest against mine as his soft wisps of warm breath stroked my face, “Why do you love me, Ava?”

I frowned at him and reached up to cup his face, “You really don’t know by now?”

He shrugged and twitched his lips slightly, “Humour me.”

“Well, I can’t do this with your cock still buried deep inside me, it’s really distracting.”

His smile widened before he placed a soft kiss on my nose and rolled over, lying beside me but turned to his side and awaited my words, something he obviously needed right now. “Please,” he urged. “I just need to hear it.”

His pain was suffocating and I knew, I knew what was wrong but held back my distress hoping my intuition was wrong, needing it to once be wrong. I couldn’t go there again. I refused to go there again yet I saw it, deep inside him. His need for it was strong and overwhelming confirming my suspicions and aching my soul. “Mason, please tell me you didn’t?”

I didn’t need him to answer, his expression and the way his muscles tightened told me. Anger surged through me, the disappointment along with disbelief burning a whole straight through my heart. “Why? Why?”

His hand shot out and grabbed hold of my wrist as I swung for him, my fury controlling my actions and giving me a need to lash out and release the pent up frustration, “Ava!” He dropped his hold and brought his hands up to my arms, seizing me tightly to both snap me out of my wrath and to restrain me.

“How could you, how could you do that to George? Why would you? He’s just fifteen damn it.” My disappointment with him was overwhelming and I struggled to hold back my concern for George. “Why?” I demanded again.

“Don’t be naive Ava, you know why.” He stared at me with a fierce determination but I could still see the hesitancy in him, the worry over whether he had done the right thing.

“He is your son, he loves you!”

He scoffed, shaking his head slowly as he released my arms and paced across the room, his hands running through his hair in agitation. “No Ava,” he whispered sadly as he turned back to me. His expression ripped at something deep inside me and I climbed from the bed and walked over to him.

“Yes, Mason.” I cupped his face and titled his chin towards me, making him look at me, making him look at the truth. “You know he does. He’s . . . he’s just . . .”

“Angry?” He finished for me with a snort, “Confused, maybe even conflicted. I know this; you keep telling it to me but come on Ava, you see the way he looks at me, or rather doesn’t look at me. You’re blind not to see it.”

“No!” It was my turn to clasp him now. I wanted to shake him, hurt him into believing what was in front of him even if he couldn’t see it. “You are his father. He loves and respects you.”

“Of course he respects me, who in this fucking world doesn’t but he doesn’t love me, hell the kid doesn’t even like me.”

I shook my head in exasperation. The constant battle between my husband and my son was wearing me down; thinning me out so much that soon I was frightened there would be nothing left to hold me together. “Well he won’t now. What the hell are you doing?”

“What needs to be done, Ava. I won’t have my family threatened, not any more. We don’t live like that now.”

I stared at him, my jaw hanging in disbelief, “What?” I couldn’t hold back the bitter laughter. “No, we didn’t live like that anymore but you have cranked it wide fucking open now. You have taken us back in time, shoved us through that bastard door once more. Frank won’t lay down with this, Mason. He will be vying for revenge, and Etta? What is Etta going to do now?”

My heart ached for my son’s long term girlfriend; she would now be trapped in the middle of the warzone, her heart with both sides, her loyalty one way and her soul the other. “George is young, Ava. It isn’t love, not at their age.”

I rubbed my weary eyes, tiredness and anguish clawing away and taking what inner peace I had found in the last ten years, disintegrating it like dust around me as I slumped on the bed and buried my face in my hands.

The room was silent for a while. I couldn’t look at him; I didn’t want to even hear him breathing right now. “You have no idea what you’ve done.”

I shook my head in pity as I lifted my eyes to him. “Ava?”

I swallowed the lump in my throat and forced it past my chest when it quickly turned to nausea. “Etta is pregnant.”

I watched sadly as his eyes widened and his knees buckled. His hand shot out and he grabbed hold of the dresser. He was still naked and if the situation wasn’t so dire I would have laughed at the way his previous erection suddenly shrivelled and died. “You just alienated our only chance of ever seeing our grandchild.”

I could feel his eyes on me as he watched me pull on my robe and leave the room. I had to get away from him. Right at that moment I hated my glorious bastard with everything inside me.

Chapter 2

Mason

“FUCK!”

My fist smashed into the wall, the harsh brick both grazing my knuckles and causing some bone damage. “Fuck! Stupid, stupid boy!”

It was all a mess, a huge web of deceit, backstabbing and supremacy, a tangle of who was the bigger and better, hungrier and worthier. Frank couldn’t carry on; I wouldn’t let him carry on. Ava didn’t understand, but she needed to. I had backed off and let my patience overrule me just to see where the time would take us, but now, now there was no option but to take it further. Events had been set in motion. It was too late now.

I pulled on some jeans and went in search of Ava. She would never forgive me, however she needed to know the full story. It would break her, her love for George would torture her but she needed to understand.

I would tackle George later, the fool. What the hell, he was fifteen and already taking the path I had tried so hard to block and demolish, a life I had fought for him to life to the full. Although he was my double in image, he was Ava’s replica in spirit and temperament, his stupid choices and constant need to see decency in people was his downfall, as had always been Ava’s ruin.

“Baby!” My shout echoed around the silence of the house and I frowned as I tipped my ear to listen for her. There was always noise somewhere in the house; silence here was a luxury, a craving I hungered for. Katie always had loud friends over or crazy music playing, her and George incessantly trying to drown each other out with both their styles of music. She was a solid rock chick, her music inching towards my preference whereas George always had some moody stuff going on, that or his frequent thumping instrumental jargon.

“Ava! God damn it woman.”

I blew out a tired breath as Katie popped her head around her bedroom door and scowled at me, “What the hell, dad?”

I stared at her, quirking an eyebrow at her tone. Her face dropped and she lowered her eyes, “Sorry.”

I nodded at her apology. “Have you seen your mom?”

She shook her head but I caught the slight twitch in her nose. My daughter couldn’t lie without me knowing. “Katie?”

She sighed and flicked her eyes towards her bedroom window. I frowned and stalked past her, climbing over the mountains of clothes spewed across her floor and growled at her when I snagged my foot in the strap of her school bag and stumbled forward, my hands grabbing the windowsill to halt my fall. I heard her slight chuckle but ignored her as my attention focused outside.

“What the fuck!”

I spun round to Katie who was watching me warily. “Did you know about this?”

She shrugged and I sighed as turmoil and anguish flooded her face, “Sorry, sweetie. I know I shouldn’t drag you into this. Is this the first time?”

Her stunning green eyes, the mirror images of her mother’s flicked sideways and I groaned in distress, “Fuck!”

Katie chewed on her finger, another bloody cloned habit of Ava’s and I reached out, plucking it from her mouth as I looked at her softly, “Tell me, how long?”

She shrugged and sighed again, “I dunno, but I’ve seen her out there quite a few times over the last few months.”

“It’s okay, sweetheart,” I soothed as I stroked her head softly. “I’ll sort it.”

She nodded as I turned and walked back to the door.

“Dad.” I looked at her over my shoulder and her pretty face covered in heartache burned within me. “George . . .”

“I know.”

“He . . .” I turned back to her, giving her my full attention when she seemed to struggle with her words. “He hurts, dad. Go easy on him.”

“How much do you know, Katie? How much does he know?”

She pursed her lips but then straightened her shoulders, pulling herself upright in determination as she stared at me. “He knows a lot. He knows about Kade.”

My eyes snapped to hers. She swallowed heavily, “We both do. We know about the drugs, the women and . . .”

“And what?” I urged when she paused.

“And . . . Dane.”

“Fuck!”

She rushed over and grabbed my hand, “Dad, it’s okay. I know it’s all in the past. But George is kinda struggling with who you were . . . what you are, and what happened.”

It got worse. “People talk, dad. You know how it is. Georgie’s just angry, he doesn’t understand. He loves you, dad but he’s finding it hard. More stuff gets around and it breaks him a bit more. He thinks everything that happened to mom is your fault.”

I stared at her as my lungs started to collapse and the pounding of my blood roared in my ears. I saw the question in her eyes, the speculation as it crossed her face and I closed my eyes, trying to calm myself against the familiar mist that was blurring my vision.

“Who?”

She frowned at my question, “I don’t . . .” she shrugged but jolted when my fingers gripped her upper arms tightly. “Who told you all this?”

She reared back and I groaned, quickly releasing her from my stronghold. “Sorry. Sorry.”

She smiled and it broke my heart. The same damn smile that my wife would always give me when I had fucked up, the identical pitying expression that would break me a little more each time, “Dad. It’s over, it’s in the past.”

I shook my head sadly, “It’s never over Katie, not for your mother.”

She nodded faintly, “No, I guess not.”

Placing my hands either side of her head, I pulled her in and kissed the crown of her head before I left the room and pulled the door gently closed behind me. I wanted to slam the thing, rip it from its hinges and throw it across the hallway but I swallowed it back and took a deep breath in preparation to confront Ava.

Chapter 3

Ava

I SLID ONTO the bench and closed my eyes, relishing the small but significant relieve on my thoughts and the loosening of my muscles.

What the hell was I going to do? George would never forgive Mason for this. He would never forgive me for telling his dad a secret he had unshackled from his drowning spirit, the liberation of his many secrets had hopefully freed his tortured soul from what had been suffocating and killing him slowly.

I took another drag and held it in my lungs for a few seconds as the nectar worked its way into my bloodstream and trickled its magic into my brain, releasing me from the grip of worry and sorrow.

I felt him before I heard him and shot upright, flicking the evidence away but I was too late. He stood before me, his arms folded as his jaw twitched rapidly. His face was stoic and expressionless but his eyes were deeply in contrast to that, they fired with a blaze I hadn’t witnessed for a long time. It was very rare that my glorious bastard surfaced, but when he did my heart always beat faster, the blood rush searing through me as my veins struggled to accommodate the current, leaving me lightheaded and panting. My throat trembled as he took a step closer, his bottom lip now being ravaged under his teeth as his cold stare took me hostage.

“Don’t throw it, baby, it’s pretty obvious you need it.”

I gulped as his feet brought him closer, his chest was heaving as his angry breaths fuelled his wrath. His lips twisted into a sinister smirk and I shifted uncomfortably as he suddenly dropped in front of me, his hands gripping the back of the bench either side of my head, bringing his face directly in line with mine. “How long?”

I stared mutely at him then closed my eyes when his probing glare became too much. “Open your eyes.” He demanded in the tone I knew meant business.

I slowly opened them and found him an inch closer. He cupped my chin harshly when I dropped my gaze to the floor and tilted my head back until I was once more staring into the angry hazel orbs. “Answer me.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

He scoffed as his hold tightened further, “I beg to differ, it matters a lot.”

I shrugged, “A while.”

He frowned at me, his eyes both sad and angry. “How could I not have seen this?”

I didn’t answer him but I don’t think he was actually talking to me, more just saying his thoughts out loud. He stood up and twisted his head, looking behind him and up to the house. I followed his gaze and found Katie watching us through her bedroom window, her face full of worry and sadness.

Mason took hold of my hand and practically dragged me behind him and into the summerhouse behind us. My back slammed against the wall as his large, hard frame encompassed me and pinned me under him. “Will you talk to me. I have no idea what is going on with you.”

“Really? You have no idea what is happening to your family when you are the one hell bent on destroying it.”

He closed his eyes for a second before he drew in a calming breath. “Ava, you have no idea what is going on.”

“Then tell me,” I demanded angrily. How could I understand if I was kept in the dark time and time again?

“Frank is . . . Frank is trafficking girls.”

I stared at him, my eyes wide as shock slammed through me. “What? No!”

We had been friends with Frank and his wife for many years. I knew he was into dodgy business and who was I to judge but I had thought Mason was beyond that now. Yes, I admit I had been slightly scared that Frank’s friendship would be a bad influence on Mason, dragging him back into the darkness of criminal activity that he had once craved and relished; his hunger for violence an addiction deep within him.